Kate is a business student who was due to sit her final exam. As long as she passed the exam she had been assured of a training position at a prestigious management consulting firm. As she did not want to risk being late by using public transport, Kate chose to drive to the exam. Kate passed her test the year before, but had not driven much as she lacked confidence driving on busy roads and she was conscious of setting off her anxiety problem. On the day of her exam though, she felt there was more risk in not driving.

On her journey, Kate stalled at a busy junction and consequently was the victim of road rage from another driver. Kate started to feel more and more anxious, but carried on driving so as not to be late for the exam. However, she ended up having a full-blown panic attack which caused her to drive, at speed, into the back of a car driven by Nigel who had had stopped at a red light. Nigel suffered a broken leg and also hit his head against the side of his car.

Nigel was taken to the Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) and seen by Dr Hilary. Dr Hilary was a junior doctor with no specialism in head and brain injuries; however, due to a lack of experienced staff there was no one present who could assist in performing the appropriate assessment. As Nigel was conscious, Dr Hilary felt that he trauma to Nigel's head was unlikely to have caused any significant head injury and so decided to treat his broken leg first rather than sending him for a head CT scan. This was in fact contrary to the official Canada Health guidelines and an experienced doctor would have appreciated the need to have a scan immediately. Subsequently, Nigel suffered a seizure due to suffering internal bleeding in the brain which would have been revealed by a CT scan. His condition continued to worsen and Nigel ended up in a vegetative state.

Advise Kate and the hospital on the extent to which either will be held liable (if any) for Nigel's injuries.